July 21, 2010

Here's the statement by NAACP President Benjamin Jealous trying to shift the blame to "Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart" for editing the Shirley Sherrod video to heighten an apparent confession of racism. When he saw that video, Jealous's reaction against Sherrod was immediate. She was toxic and had to be spat out.

To react like that is to display the same human weakness that underlies racism itself. You see one thing, you see the whole person as nothing but that one thing, you feel instinctive aversion and fear, and you reflexively push that person away. Blaming those who showedyou thatone thing does not absolve you from your responsibility to rise above the level of instinct and fear. It is up to you to go beyond your first perception, to search for the truth, and to use reason and judgment before you make a decision about someone.

Jealous doesn't acknowledge this personal responsibility. Indeed, he continues to operate in this instinctive, reactive mode. It's not as if he went looking for the truth about Sherrod. Sherrod came forward and defended herself by relating the whole story and complaining about the edit. Her presentation was a new embarrassment, and Jealous's current statement is a reaction to that. Moreover, his shot at "Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart" is another instant reaction. Not only does Jealous assume a motive behind the edit — "the intention of deceiving" — he assumes Fox News and Breitbart did the editing. But Breitbart says he received the video already edited.

***

Here's the full Shirley Sherrod video. I will comment on it in a separate post.

199 comments:

I can't recall meeting one of those evil racist demons so commonly cited in the press and on the web.

I lived through the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. Ending Jim Crow was the right thing to do. Had to be done.

The PR tactic used in that political struggle was to depict completely evil whites, exemplified by white southern men, opposed by sainted, martyred blacks.

This story was absorbed by our kids. And it was reinforced by the far left loons who dominate the education industry.

I grew up in small town, Republican Illinois. Since, I've lived in San Francisco, New York City, Chicago and Woodstock, NY. People are precisely the same all of these places. There is no great moral difference between small town Illinois and cosmopolitan New York City.

Those demonic racists really don't exist. The few that do exist are psychological basket cases.

It's time to stop replaying the Civil Rights era. But, I hold out very little hope that that will happen.

Ms. Sherrod apparently is getting her job back, but she has caused a good many (self)important people to embarrass themselves in public, and it would be prudent for her to keep a low profile for a while. Just make a pot of coffee, put her feet up, and watch the skit work itself out.

I can't watch the video right now. The telling point of the original release wasn't to highlight Sherrod's video as much as to show the approval by the NAACP audience. Breitbart himself pointed out in the original article that her essential humanity kicked in and she did work to help the farmer. But the audience never expressed disapproval of her original disinclination to help the man because of his race. Quite the contrary.

The full video doesn't exonerate her prior statements, in which she admitted withholding her full effort for a farmer precisely because he was white.

She thought better of it, but she never should have been in that office making those decisions given her views. Who else has she only partially helped due to their race? Did she later only help the poor?Those aren't her decisions to make.She politicized her government position.

But this is the standard approach by the left.

I can't believe I have to point this out, but if a white speaker said this about a black farmer, his having second thoughts would have not lessened calls for his dismissal.

There are separate rules for different races, that much is clear to me.

I agree with Larry J, and with the numerous posters who made the same point yesterday. The racism is not Sherrod's admission of racist feelings about the white farmer. The racism is the audience's reaction.

Yesterday not a single left-winger commentator, not even Beth, seemed to really grasp that point. Nor does Ben Jealous get it today.

I'm still not sold on her story of redemption. I knew not to discriminate based on race by the time I was 16 working my first job as a grocery store cashier. People would have been outraged if I had not. Why did she have to "learn that lesson" so late in life and when she had already amassed so much responsibility?

I am happy that the truth has come out about Mrs. Sherrod. Kudos to the various media outlets that did the due diligence to get the truth out there instead of letting her public integrity wallow under a spurious shadow.

How sad that they could not be moved to do so for all the those unjustly accusded in the past.

I would like to take this opportunity of a new thread to once again point out that all of this is MISSING THE POINT!

THE most important issue confronting us is the looming catastrophe of Alien Invasion, as the Draconians move to eliminate the Gray Alien Influence on this Planet.

I have no doubt that the Gray's have emissaries in the White House...

Why oh WHY must we debate these little meaningless crises, when a disaster looms before us!

Plus Brietbart and the Tea Party and Glenn Reynolds are all, dumb, dumb, DUMB....Do not use them as sources of information OR inspiration....please use MY website lonepotaotahead.com as your total source of information.

And the key part of the story is not Sherrod's speech - it is the reaction of the crowd which approves of her early racism. That's the sticking point - the NAACP says the "Tea Party" is racist, and yet there are racists within their own ranks.

I don't think Breitbart's plan was to get this woman fired. He was certainly angling for a reaction from the NAACP. He showed a person at an NAACP event saying something that was obviously racist. "...white lawyer, one of his own kind."

I suspect that he was hoping for a waffling response from the NAACP to get them on their heels. At which point, he would roll out other videos from NAACP event with more inflammatory comments and more robust audience approval. This is what he did with ACORN tapes. By reacting the way it did initially, the NAACP has shown that it has a very low tolerance for racism in their midst and may have defused Breitbart's plan. But this waffling now, means he can come back with more videos.

However, the reaction from the White House is unexpected. It's worse than any reaction Breitbart could have expected. They've shown a very, very thin skin and they are weak and they are confused.

Glenn Beck has scored a point defending this woman, after the White House pressured her to resigned because they feared his reaction to this still developing story.

We've just seen the groundwork laid for every Republican attack against the Democrats for the next 2.5 years. Find some controversial statement by a government employee, play it up, wait for the White House to overreact, play the overreaction to your favor. Obama's team haven't the maturity to handle any criticism at all and it's going to be painful to watch them flail about in a storm of it.

This is all very painful and sad to watch. I watched the whole video. I've known many folks like Ms. Sherrod, black and white. Not evil, not spiteful, not racist. But they've grown up in a time and place where certain racial viewpoints were part of their larger family/community. If you watch her whole video and then the interview of the white farmer and his wife you can see how each could say things about people of the other race, that would not "sound good". Yet you can see that each views the other in a sympathetic light.

I recall when my mom told me that as a little girl growing up in rural Iowa they called hazel nuts (we had a hazel nut bush on our property) "N**ger toes". I remember feeling horrified at the word, inside a little "giggly" that my mom had said a "bad word" in a private conversation and all the while thinking "This is my Mom, who I love". She was NOT a racist but she could see how racial attitudes, good and bad, were pervasive throughout society. Now this was the same mom who was horrified and disgusted when Dick Gregory appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and openly talked about his book nigger. She blurted out "That's not right; you can't say that!"

My two lessons from this ongoing saga (Breitbart, NAACP et al)1) race is a potent and dangerous political weapon. Generally no one wins when race-baiting begins.2)If you're speaking to an audience of one color (including yours) and you start to speak of the "others" you're likely to say something stupid and the audience probably won't correct you or call you on it.

Big Mike: The racism is the audience's reaction. Yesterday not a single left-winger commentator, not even Beth, seemed to really grasp that point.

You mean they didn't buy your lies? Watch the whole video and it's clear, when she introduces ther story, that the audience knew where she was going. Because she told them where the story was going before she told it.

You've been conned by right-wingers who are as despicable in their tactics as Michael Moore.

I get the impression that we are governed by young children and that young children run some of our prominent organizations.

The thin skin, the inability to curb initial impulses and emotional reactions, the inability to try and see people as complex rather than as wholly good or wholly evil, the inability to take personal responsibility, the willingness to immediately point fingers and assign blame, the name-calling and petulance, the tantrums... they should all get time-outs, go off and sit in a corner somewhere, and no desserts with dinner.

When I first saw the Sherrod video I was underwhelmed. Didn't seem to be anything more than a typical gathering of blacks discussing the real or perceived biases in our society, with a bit more nudge nudge, wink wink about having power in a "white" culture.

What was really, really enlightening was the way the video made both the NAACP and the Obama administration run for the hills. That was exceedingly educational. They are well and truly scared of anything having to do with racial politics and the Tea Party.

By reacting the way it did initially, the NAACP has shown that it has a very low tolerance for racism in their midst and may have defused Breitbart's plan.

In what way did they show this?

I'm serious. What I see by their actions is the swift desire to hide that there is a deep vein of racism within the NAACP and that that racism is tolerated and encouraged UNTIL....it is noticed by the public. Then....it's under the bus you go.

Dead Julius once again I agree with you: "the instantaneous, reactive, thoughtless punditry is really bad for the country." But after reading all the posts on this blog yesterday, we all need to be careful in reacting to the news cycle whether it is from Fox or ABC--particularly when it concerns issuses of race. But frankly I think we all like quick reinforcements of our ideology how much easier it is to parse Palin then consider a piece of journalism that took two years to research and write (WaPost' series on the hidden world of intelligent agencies) because it complicates the issue of how many jobs the the govt does create-- many for private industry, and just what is the point of all this intelligence gathering.

This is looking like Breitbart jumped the gun and showed the edited video without looking at the full video. Either he was careless, or somebody punked him.

I'm glad Ms. Sherrod is getting her job back. The life experience she had explains her edited statement. Context is king here.

I have to also agree with Ms. Althouse here. This doesn't make Benjamin Jealous look good for his readiness to throw Ms. Sherrod under the bus. Or the White House for pressuring her to resign.

Listening to the video, though, I get another thing: It's understandable why defending the health care initiative is viewed as a battle against racism. Because the life experience that Ms. Sherrod and others have had is that they had to battle racism to get where they are. So when going up against any opposition to the Democratic president's agenda, it must be racism, because that's what it always was before.

The wisdom of giving people a hearing where they may confront witnesses against them and are entitled to cross examine those witnesses appears to be the story. As soon as Sherrod got her turn to be heard, the judgement turned in her favor. The Evil of Journolist is highlighted by this experience. The monopoly on who speaks and what can be spoken that they demand is the #1 method of evil in mankind's experience. Sherrod will be saved by CNNs spending 3 hours to get the truth out. If Journolist had been against her, she would have been a goner.

Ever since Bill Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro were denounced as racists during the primary, the whole epithet lost any meaning with me. The accusation then was shown in the light of day nothing more than a label to tar someone who simply disagreed with you. Nothing more.

Go away now, and ask God for forgiveness. You need to contemplate your own sins, not the sins of others.

I'm not the one who falsely called Sherrod a racist, on my website, knowing full well I didn't have the entire tape. I also wasn't the "news network" running this on a loop all day on cable tv. But now the latest Breitbart hatchet job totally blew up in his face, this of course means Obama and the NAACP are at fault, in the Althouse Universe. Only in this fucked up country can a true success story, and American success story, be turned into an ugly race issue. And it didn't have to be. Unbelievable.

Plus, it is instructive that the NAAACP, talking heads like Rachel Maddow, Olberman etc and the MSM all immediately blame Fox News for editing the clip.

It is my understanding that Fox didn't edit the clip and in fact didn't even AIR the clip until the whole debacle was well underway and Ms. Sherrod was already road kill on the highway of Presidential whims.

This is WHY the clip was shown in the first place to counter the false and libelous claims of the NAACP that the Tea Party is racist.

They just keep proving themselves the bigoted and racist ones by their continual scapegoating of Fox and other groups.

These people, the MSM, Jourolist whores are dangerous to our freedom. Perhaps we should take a page from THEIR book of tactics and try to FORCIBLY shut them up as they suggested be done to Fox and Talk Radio. Hmmmmm?

Who the hell is the NAACP to be the judge of whether or not the Tea Party harbors racists? The fact is that the charge of racism (or the charge of antisemitism) is a very serious charge that should never be made on the basis of a suspicion. The NAACP has earned dismissal as a kook fringe organization.

This is looking like Breitbart jumped the gun and showed the edited video without looking at the full video. Either he was careless, or somebody punked him.

I'm glad Ms. Sherrod is getting her job back. The life experience she had explains her edited statement. Context is king here

@Brian....while I agree about context....

This is NOT about Ms Sherrod directly but rather it is to expose the inherent and deep running racism within the NAACP, the black community and now most especially within the President's Administration.

The cat is out of the bag. The secret that we have all known and didn't speak about for years. Black people are racists. Big surprise...not.

Of course, now that the secret is out, the MSM is going to be doing its best to throw up smoke screens and keep us from focusing.......SQUIRREL!!!!

Look, the story was never about Sherrod. It was about the audiences reaction and, shocker, Jealous apparently was in attendance (which makes his original reactionary statement all the more hysterical).

Remember that this all started with Jealous desperately trying to find relevance for his organization in the upcoming election. His target of choice was a widespread, grassroots "organization" that has peacefully assembled hundreds of times over the past year and a half. Since the participants tend to be a little older and a lot whiter, Jealous' crew saw it as an easy patsy for their group to attack, despite a complete lack of evidence.

I've listened to various black callers call various talk show hosts over the past week. When challenged, they cannot point to a single instance of racism at a tea-party rally. The only one we had here locally in St Louis turned out to be a Democrat plant.

The huge, glaring silver lining in this whole affair, and yet another good reason President Obama, despite my personal opposition to just about every policy position he's taken, is good for this country. The race card is definitely loosing it's power and the electorate are waking up.

The race card has always been the left's Billy Buroo...and now they go to the bag only to find the damned thing has a cracked shaft and a bent head. Frankly, it always did. The only reason it worked for so long was because the judges were afraid to rule anything other than a ball in the hole.

I don't understand why, in this day and age, people automatically jump to conclusions like this. Haven't we seen enough situations to know that we need to ask more questions before investing in a position? Make an INFORMED decision please.

And even more troubling is that once people take a side they frequently resort to the most intellectually dishonest positions in order to save face. Then we end up arguing over things that are irrelevant to the original point.

"Only in this fucked up country can a true success story, and American success story, be turned into an ugly race issue. And it didn't have to be. Unbelievable."

Boy, have you hit the nail on the head. A complete reordering of society from slavery, to segregation and Jim Crow, to equality, and yet race is a festering sore kept putrid by politicians and advocacy groups for their own selfish interest. The only part you got wrong is "unbelievable".

The original video still shows how the audience was totally down with the first part of her story where Sherrod was giving a white farmer the Bum's Rush. While the full video (which the NAACP had in its possession the whole time, btw) shows that her story has a much happier ending, it certainly appears that the audience would have been just fine with the ending that we all previously assumed.

I do find it amusing that the WH and Vilsack jumped so quickly on the strength of nothing more than a Blogger's YouTube video - I mean, as bad as the original video looked, Sherrod wasn't even given a chance to defend herself. Can anyone say running scared?

Finally, as much as I am sure I would intensely dislike Sherrod in person, as other information shows her to be a Marxist grievance-monger, I am glad to hear she will get her job back, and that Obama, Vilsack and the NAACP were made to look like dopes in the process.

What I am struck with is the extent that the mainstream media is actually claiming her words (2 and 1/2 continuous minutes of them) were taken "out of context".

First, the tone and attitude of her statement " I didn't apply the full force of what I could do" was said not with any hint of regret. It didn't sound like an admission to me, it had the tone of righteousness, and the crowd reaction echoed that tone.

Second, the legacy media CONSTANTLY takes phrases and snippets "out of context" when it comes to conservatives. None of these media outlets have ever given Rush Limbaugh even ONE MINUTE of context surrounding his "controversial" soundbytes.

None of these media outlets have ever given Rush Limbaugh even ONE MINUTE of context surrounding his "controversial" soundbytes.

BINGO.

This is what we get when we have a 'state controlled' or self whoring media. They get to pick and choose the targets.

The internet, youtube, fox etc have opened up the access to information. Can they be just as disengenous and play the same games with the truth as the controlling media....you bet they can.

Gooose...gander.

We, as citizens, need to be more discerning and educated. Unfortunately 85% of the country consists of brain dead products of our public education system who can barely read and write, much less make informed decisions.

Larry J hits the nail on the head. Plus, Fox News never showed the video until AFTER Sherrod had already been forced to resign. Hate filled liberals like Garbage won't let that little truth affect their desires to watch people die.

@Franco: "First, the tone and attitude of her statement 'I didn't apply the full force of what I could do' was said not with any hint of regret. It didn't sound like an admission to me, it had the tone of righteousness, and the crowd reaction echoed that tone."

I'd say it had the tone of honesty. She was accurately conveying her racist attitude at that time. But then she goes on to tell how the white farmer was being ill-served by the white lawyer. She describes how she took the farmer's side and did everything she could to get him some competent legal representation.

If you listen to her summation at 21:00-21:28, she draws the right lesson: "Working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't." You'll also hear approving comments from the audience.

Americans generally don't like racism. They really do strive to be color-blind.

They've been conditioned for *decades* that racism comes only from the Right. Changing, or expanding on, that perception will take time. It's like stearing an oceanliner. That's why choosing THIS video as the unofficial opening argument is so disappointing. Take a video camera to any local NAACP meeting, or any of the hundreds of Wright-like churches, and you'll do much better.

Heck, just listen to some black talk radio.

But this? Unless Breitbart has more coming, and he might, this is a step backward.

I don't think a group can be racist. (With a few notable exceptions, along the lines of the KKK).

People are racist. People belong to groups. But I try not to say that because there are some racists in a group, that group is racist. This goes for the NAACP, or the Tea Party, or just about any group.

"I do find it amusing that the WH and Vilsack jumped so quickly on the strength of nothing more than a Blogger's YouTube video - I mean, as bad as the original video looked, Sherrod wasn't even given a chance to defend herself. Can anyone say running scared?"

What are the odds they're still scared now? Not great. This video will embolden them I'm afraid.

The NAACP investigated further after their initial response. They have issued a public and personal apology and their representatives started taking heat and have on cable news networks...sans Faux Noise which is still running the original story.

I fail to see where Breitbart and his ilk have apologized for their part in all this....and I kindly remind all here that THEY STARTED THIS mess and Sherrod got in the way of their intended smear.

"The telling point of the original release wasn't to highlight Sherrod's video as much as to show the approval by the NAACP audience."

Big Mike said:

"The racism is not Sherrod's admission of racist feelings about the white farmer. The racism is the audience's reaction.

Yesterday not a single left-winger commentator, not even Beth, seemed to really grasp that point."

I have not viewed the longer tape, but as I understand it (1) the longer tape does no marginal harm to Ms. Sherrod's case beyond what the original, shorter, tape did; and (2) these comments and others like them are about the original shorter tape. With that said, and acknowledging it's poor form to copy-and-paste one's own previous comment...

OK, go and carefully watch and listen to the smoking-gun video that started this whole thing, here.

1. In the opening seconds the text appearing on the screen says in so many words that she admits to currently discriminating against people in her current USDA job:

"On March 27, 2010, while speaking at the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet ... Ms. Sherrod admits that in her federally appointed position, overseeing a billion dollars ... She discriminates against people due to their race."

It's been pretty well proven, I think, that that's simply false. But we've heard that's not the point anyway, the point is the reaction of the crowd, laughing and applauding her remarks, showing the crowd's racism if not Ms. Sherrod's.

2. Except that doesn't work either. Watch and listen to the video, carefully. Starting at around 0:32, one person says "That's right, that's right" when Ms. Sherrod says the white farmer was trying to show he was superior to her. Then at around 0:40, she says "but he had to come to me for help," and a few people nod their heads and murmur something that I at least cannot make out. She gets a laugh from the crowd right around 0:50 with "while he was trying to show he was superior to me, I was deciding how much help I was going to give him." Might have been some race-based animus in that, but it's also possible it was a response to a more generic set-up of someone acting arrogant about to get his comeuppance.

And that's it. I honestly cannot find another instance of laughter, or head-nodding, or any other sort of agreement or approval, including when she says so many black people had lost their farm and here I was having to help a white man. Not a peep. Same with "I didn't give him the full force of what I could do," around 1:05. Not a peep.

I don't think the alternative explanation works either. Really -- where is the audience showing approval when she relates what she had done to the white farmer 24 years earlier? It ain't there.

I fail to see where Breitbart and his ilk have apologized for their part in all this....and I kindly remind all here that THEY STARTED THIS mess and Sherrod got in the way of their intended smear

100% wrong, though it's not surprising it has escaped you. Jealous and the NAACP started it with that flaccid attack on the tea party. This incident with Sherrod only illustrates further just how monumental a boob Jealous is.

The Agriculture Department has a lengthy history with the official forced to resign Monday over a controversial YouTube clip -- it turns out she and a group she helped found with her husband won millions last year in a discrimination suit settlement with the federal government.

The information about the suit only thickens the plot that has evolved seemingly by the hour since Shirley Sherrod resigned late Monday as the department's Georgia director of rural development...

But it's not the first time Sherrod faced off against the federal government. Days before she was appointed to the USDA post last year, her group reportedly won a $13 million settlement in a longstanding discrimination suit against the USDA known commonly as the Pigford case.

The Rural Development Leadership Network announced last summer that New Communities Inc. -- a group Sherrod formed with husband Charles, who is a civil rights activist, and with other black farmers -- had reached the agreement. The RDLN said the USDA had "refused" to offer new loans or restructure old loans to members of New Communities, leading to the discrimination claim.

The announcement said that in addition to the $13 million to New Communities, Shirley and Charles Sherrod would each get $150,000 for "pain and suffering."

A USDA official told FoxNews.com on Tuesday that the settlement had "nothing to do with" Sherrod's hiring last year -- likewise, the official said her resignation was only the result of her comments in the video.

"This is all about her comments," the official said.

Sherrod's settlement was a drop in the bucket in terms of the money the federal government has paid out in Pigford claims to other black farmers over the years. The suit claimed the USDA racially discriminated against black farmers by not giving them fair treatment when they applied for loans or assistance. The case was first settled in 1999, resulting to date in more than $1 billion in compensation payments from the federal government.

In addition, the Obama administration has called for another $1.15 billion to settle claims for other black farmers -- Congress has not yet granted the money...

Where Breitbart really lies about the NAACP is when he said this video shows that the members who attended this dinner whooped and applauded racist speech. Those who actually watched the full unaltered video know that is a lie. No such thing occurred.

Hey Libtard, why did they need to investigate further? Jealous attended the speech and they had the full unedited video of it.

sans Faux Noise which is still running the original story.

More lies. YESTERDAY, FOX ran the entire story, and paid close attention to the context of Sherrod's remarks, ie. they brought up Sherrod's background of white on black violence, the farmer's defense of her, and, most importatantly - FOX aired the defense (and agreed with it) that Sherrod was explaining how she used to be a racist but learned from it.

I fail to see where Breitbart and his ilk have apologized for their part in all this

Breitbart didn't fire her. What is there to apologize for?

....and I kindly remind all here that THEY STARTED THIS mess and Sherrod got in the way of their intended smear.

More lies. Damn, you really are a feeble Libtard. Its been explained to you a hundred times that the NAACP falsely accusing the Tea Party of racism is was precipitated all of this, yet you keep sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalalalalala

> Anyone who actually watches the full unedited video knows that Ms. Sherrod is a kind and gentle woman.

Well, fine, but where is the unedited video? And don't say at the NAACP's site. that video was edited, too.

But you know who saw the full unedited performance? Ben Jealous and the board of directors of the NAACP. And their first reaction was condemnation. now why is that, if the context truly exonerates her?

So the new leftist tenet on racial discrimination is that repentence heals prior acts, and that repentance is accepted at face value.

How exactly does this square with the continuing leftist tenet that sharing non-race related political beliefs with a racist taints those beliefs even if you explicitly deny the racist views? Somehow we're more responsible for others' attitudes than we are for our own previously held views?

First, a lot of criticism was heaped on Dubya from all sides for standing by people long after they should have been dismissed. The Zero and friends have always shown no hesitancy about shoving someone under the bus, but now they stand guilty of firing a worker unjustly accused without giving her a fair hearing. Now they are 'reviewing' her case.

The irony is that Conservatives like Glenn Beck are the ones who put pressure to bear to give her a second look. When did the Lefties ever go back and say, "I was wrong", after sliming somebody?

Second, Brietbart was on Hannity speaking about this and his intent was to show the hypocrisy of the NAACP in calling the Tea Partiers racists. He said he had only received an edited video, but the point here is that it was a version edited by the NAACP. Why stop it where they did?

There was a time in this country when the NAACP was admired for its courage and its principles. No more.

As for Brietbart, his crime is not considering the collateral damage the edited version may have caused. And, yes, he should have held his fire until he had the full tape. Yet his point about the NAACP is still valid.

A lot of Lefties, including many here, are a lot more eager to hang anyone they don't like with lies and half-truths. They have no business criticizing him.

The smoking gun really is the words "his own kind". This is the CORE of racism..believing in different "kinds".

Unfortunately, it is all too prevalent in the black community. There is a Janus-like quality among many blacks who revel in racial differences when it suits them, yet they disallow others to ever mention differences of any kind at all. It is almost used as a trap by them. Jimmy the Greek gets fired for saying blacks genetically can jump higher than whites...a few years later we have a mainstream movie " White Men Can't Jump". Does Jimmy get his job back? No.

They need to come to terms with this. No more than that one statement "his own kind" is needed to show a tinge of racist thought

Furthermore...does anyone really think that there aren't black folks who are in power who operate this way?

"He was trying to show he was superior to me" is also pretty damning. I really don't think that is a smart strategy on anyone's part when someone has power to help you to try to show your "superiority", so I kind of doubt that was what he was trying to do.

This womans' interpretation of his motivations could easily be skewed by her own defensiveness and race-consciousness.

It's amusing to see Breitbart and many people here moving the goalposts. Yesterday, the point was to expose a racist Obama appointee. Breitbart even said this story she told was of something that happened while she worked for Obama.

After the Spooners (and the facts) completely demolished that line, everything shifted. Suddenly we're told that the Sherrod wasn't the point, but that the NAACP crowd reaction was the point all along. I guess we should just ignore all the language attacking Sherrod in the initial blog post.

If Sherrod was never the intended target, why is Breitbart saying that the Spooners might be plants? Why does anyone pay attention to this assclown, especially after his royal con job with those ACORN tapes?

After the Spooners (and the facts) completely demolished that line, everything shifted. Suddenly we're told that the Sherrod wasn't the point, but that the NAACP crowd reaction was the point all along.

That's incorrect, Jim. I and a few others started early by making the point that it was the crowd, not the speaker, that was the point of the video because it was a direct answer to the NAACP's letter against the tea party people.

If this turns out poorly for AB then it will turn out poorly for AB. I'm not carrying water for him any more than I am white or black people in general.

Even sans this ridiculous incident (made ridiculous by the sheer speed and apparent lack of info her superiors had before firing her), the argument that minorities cannot be bigots and that the majority always is has never held any water with anyone with an ounce of sense...or minimal powers of observation for that matter.

> It's amusing to see Breitbart and many people here moving the goalposts. Yesterday, the point was to expose a racist Obama appointee. Breitbart even said this story she told was of something that happened while she worked for Obama.

Um, bullshit on that. Here is what brietbart said when introducing the video: http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/07/19/video-proof-the-naacp-awards-racism2010/#more-145962

First the headline:

> “Video Proof: the NAACP Awards Racism—2010.”

Note, the headline itself is about the NAACP. In fact, Shirley Sherrod’s name doesn’t even appear for several paragraphs. I’d guesstimate around 7 paragraphs. Instead he explains its all about context. And the context he is concerned with is:

> For the past week, Americans who consider themselves aligned with the Tea Party movement have suffered the indignity of being falsely labeled racist by the NAACP and their pro-bono publicity managers, the main stream media. The constant calls to “repudiate the racists from your ranks” have not only been insulting, but have also served to force a false standard upon America’s fastest-growing and most vibrant political movement that no other group could ever live up to nor would ever be asked to live up to.

It goes on quite a bit telling the whole sordid story of how the race card has been played against the tea party, and then gives a summary of what is on the video, saying this after describing Sherrod’s remarks:

> Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

In fact he goes as far as to say that the worst part of the video is not even the racism, but her saying, get a federal job, you will never be laid off. But because of the NAACP’s conduct, the racist part has become more important.

In my effort to INFORM myself, I watched the purported "FULL" video linked in this post. I learned:

1. This video has been edited at about the 21 minute mark.

2. The NAACP President was greeted in the opening remarks.

3. Learning to work with all kinds of people is admirable, but when push comes to shove, I should pick my own kind.

4. There are a ton of government programs, with seemingly easy to get government money, that I know nothing about.

5. Anyone who disagrees with healthcare is racist, and that the 8 years of Bush and Republican rule are the root cause of the disagreement with healthcare, and that it is also because we have a black man in the White House.

6. All actions taken by black people should always harken back to slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow laws.

When I heard that on the Sherrod tape, all I could think of was Rita Moreno singing to Natalie Wood in West Side Story - "stick to your own kind ...." No doubt, it was fresh in the 1950s when Sondheim wrote the lyrics.

The whole thing -- charges of racism based on little or nothing, thrown back and forth and all for transparent partisan advantage -- has such a dated, worn-out feeling. Surely there is something more interesting to talk about.

Is there another pot of taxpayer gold at the end of Sherrod's rainbow?

Well, her civil rights were violated on at least two fronts. And given the violators, it seems that Shirley Sherrod is in a position to collect the largest individual settlement in U.S. history. With the unanimous consent of Congress.

As I posted on another thread, unless Sherrod is a Schedule C government employee, who therefore serves at the pleasure of the President, she is legally entitled to a hearing under Civil Service regulations.

So if she was regular Civil Service then attempts to pressure her for her resignation were illegal.

"What I see by their actions is the swift desire to hide that there is a deep vein of racism within the NAACP and that that racism is tolerated and encouraged UNTIL....it is noticed by the public. Then....it's under the bus you go.

Please explain how you think otherwise?"

"This is WHY the clip was shown in the first place to counter the false and libelous claims of the NAACP that the Tea Party is racist.

They just keep proving themselves the bigoted and racist ones by their continual scapegoating of Fox and other groups."

So let's see here, the Tea Party kicks out Mark Williams, who has had a history of disgusting comments, and his high profile Tea Party Express, only now after he goes off the deep end following the NAACP's resolution, but the accusation from the NAACP that there are elements of racism in the Tea Party is "false and libelous."

The NAACP and USDA stupidly overreacted to what appeared, at first glance, to be damning evidence of Sherrod being a racist. This first glance appeared that way, of course, because of the incredibly duplicitous, and potentially libelous, behavior of Breitbart. To you, this means that the NAACP is trying to hide it's racism. It seems to me that both sides were doing essentially the same thing, except only one of them was dealing with an actual racist asshole - Mark Williams - while the other side was duped into a stupid overreaction to avoid the bad press.

As for Breitbart: If he knew the actual content of the speech and still went forward with the edited clip, he is a disgusting little prick. If he's telling the truth and didn't know, he's a hack "journalist" who figured it was too juicy to actually do any fact checking. (Here is where I'm expecting some great tu quoque about Dan Rather and CBS - yeah, they were hacks too, I get it)

I've always found it interesting that in the face of supposed bias from the MSM, the solution of people like Breitbart and those at Fox News is not to actually do the job the right way, but to be even worse, just from the right wing instead of the left.

85% of the country consists of brain dead products of our public education system who can barely read and write, much less make informed decisions.

How does this jibe with the idea that the people know best, that they're not stupid? How does it NOT play into arguments that [some collection of] elites are better equipped to run things?

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, with DBQ (who just happened to be the one who, at this moment, expressed some form of this sentiment) personally or in general.

It's just that I see this sentiment pop up here, not all the time of course, or even regularly, but often enough, and the contradiction always just glaringly pops out to me. I thought that for a change, rather than just ignore it, I'd ask about it.

Can we therefore conclude that the moral of this story is that we should not accuse someone of racism without sufficient evidence and a fair hearing? Can this lesson not be applied to tea partiers?.....It is good to see that Ms. Sherrod has transcended her prejudices against poor whites. Perhaps with further reflection, she will learn to adjust her implicit hostility against rich whites. The fact that she herself is now a wealthy woman will help broaden her tolerance zone for the rich.....She phrased her speech in such a way as to push a lot of red buttons among whites. Shouln't she at least acknowledge that white people are entitled to their red buttons and apologize to them for her clumsy rhetoric?

Sorry, phil, but I watched the entire stupefyingly dull 43 minute video, and what I came away with is this:

This is an older woman who grew up in the racist deep south, and who had plenty of reason to hate white people, and who apparently did, at least at one time, act on that hatred by failing to do all she could to help a failing farmer because of his race.

Now she's trying to convince others that this was wrong, because it's not white versus black -- it's haves versus have-nots.

Kind and gentle woman? Perhaps, but I see no evidence of it here. Maybe her religiosity appeals to you, and to other commenters here. It doesn't impress me. I learned not to discriminate against people based on race as a child.

but the accusation from the NAACP that there are elements of racism in the Tea Party is "false and libelous."

Since the NAACP found racism in a Hallmark greeting card that contained the word 'blackholes' in the context of a 'college graduate conquering the universe' I really don't listen much to what they have to say about anything.

85% of the country consists of brain dead products of our public education system who can barely read and write, much less make informed decisions.

It's just that I see this sentiment pop up here, not all the time of course, or even regularly, but often enough, and the contradiction always just glaringly pops out to me. I thought that for a change, rather than just ignore it, I'd ask about it.

That is not a conservative viewpoint. Conservatism rests entirely on the fact that people are adults and can run their own lives. Contrary to popular media (outside the news), such as fathers/husbands/boyfriends being complete idiots and oafs in American advertising, we all know this is not the case.

In fact, an overwhelming majority of people in this country are decent, law-abiding, people that would just as likely help you as not. It's the rabid 10% on each end that we have to contend with and, up until now, they've made most of the squeaks and thus got most of the grease.

The pushback we're seeing from the middle is due to one end of the spectrum getting too much grease, taking more on top of that, and deciding that it wants to own grease production to boot.

There is much being made about the audience’s silence or approval of Sherrod’s initial remarks about not wanting to give the “full force” of her help to the white farmer. This supposedly indicates that the main story here is about a white-racist audience. But consider a few other audience responses:

At 16:39 -- Sherrod says, “When I made that commitment, I was making that commitment to black people, and to black people only. But you know, God will show you things and He will put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people.” Clear expressions of agreement from the audience. They are granting her point: It isn’t really about race but about poverty.

At 21:00 -- “But working with [the white farmer] made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't." Again, clear expressions of agreement from the audience.

To those who interpret this event as a story about a white-racist audience, how do you square that with the audience responses noted above? Why does a supposedly racist audience agree with Sherrod when she repeatedly makes the point: It isn’t really about race, it is about people in need, regardless of their race?

There is nothing in her anecdote that can be considered racist because she is using it to illustrate how she learned that it is all about the haves and the have nots. But what is missing from the Breitbart video is the whole part where she talks about working to save the farm!

She talks about working for days to find a lawyer to help the farmer save the farm. "Working with him made me see that it's really about those who have and those who have not... and it make me realize then that I need to work to help poor people."And note when she says this the audience says 'that's right!' Yes, the NAACP audience agrees it is about poor people not just black poor people. Imagine that! Why is that not reported by Breitbart?

She then goes on to talk about indentured servants and the way [again] it is not about black and white but about poor folks and the way that a division was created by the rich to keep blacks and whites down. She says 'there is no difference between us and them. She goes on to say it's about power and the way power corrupts. And the audience cheers! Yes, they agree it's not about black and white. It's about power and greed.

My goodness. Anyone who thinks this shows racism in any way shape or form is blind to the facts and deaf to the speech. It in fact shows the complete opposite.

William said: "Can we therefore conclude that the moral of this story is that we should not accuse someone of racism without sufficient evidence and a fair hearing?"

That would be a great lesson for people to learn, William; but because I criticized this woman for abusing her power over an ordinary citizen to satisfy her own racial grievances, I was called a racist: Phil asked me if Sherrod was "too uppity" for me.

The irony is so thick that you can cut it with a knife.

There's the moral: That any lesson worth learning here has already been learned by anyone capable of learning lessons; for others, this lesson will be as pearls unto swine. And we'll repeat this whole race card bullshit the next time a white conservative uses the word "renege".

Matt said: "Anyone who thinks this shows racism in any way shape or form is blind to the facts and deaf to the speech. It in fact shows the complete opposite."

I wonder if you'd feel that way if, say, Tom Delay were to regale us with a story of how, in his younger days, he'd gotten together with a few of his white buddies and beaten the hell out of a black man, purely because of his race; just so long as the moral of the story was: "But don't do that yourselves, kids, because that would be wrong. It's not about whites versus blacks, it's about haves versus have-nots."

I kind of doubt it, since Delay had to resign in disgrace because he uttered a few charitable words to an old man on his birthday.

I watched nothing more than the edited Sherrod clip, and I thought it was obvious that it was part of a story about doing wrong, realizing one's mistake, and trying to right it. No extra footage required. I never thought the clip should have branded Sherrod a racist.

The approving audience and the talk of ironclad government employment, however, are other matters and deserve the attention they've received.

Bush and Rove wanted a more compliant leader of the Senate, and by pushing out Lott -- or more exactly, by letting him twist in the wind -- they were able to have him evicted from his position without really having to do much at all.

Having viewed a full year and a half of his administration, and most importantly having learned the truth about his qualifications, agendas, and political philosophy, we now believe the organization that campaigned to elect Mr. Obama president did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

Pastafarian Glenn Beck wants her to get her job back. Jonah Goldberg thinks Breitbart was wrong! Settle down your far right views for just a day and admit this episode was blown way out of proportion. You can do it. And you can also [maybe] try not to relate this to other episodes. I know it's hard for far right winger like you to swallow your pride.

what I think is fascinating is how Breibart tricked President Spock into applying The Vulcan Knee-Jerk to Sherrod.

That should be the real lesson here- how easy it is today, to slander someone with the race card.

If would be nice if people took away from this incident that accusations of racism should be viewed with a critical eye. But I don't expect that to happen. While this incident should be used to bash race-baiters, it will instead be used to bash conservatives.

Conservatives like Breitbart are stupid if they think they can ever win by playing the race-baiting game. The deck is too heavily stacked against them, such that they can only lose.

This was a FAIL for Breitbart, IMO. I don't see it changing any minds, but instead only reinforcing negative views of right-wingers held by the left.

And while the so-called "snookered" are getting snookered again, the Obama Bill-Passing Express continues reeking havoc on the country.

And in a related item, another onerous tax requirement has apparently been tacked onto the Health Care bill; as of 2012, dealers in gold will be forced to record and report all individual gold transactions that exceed $600 - literally, the buyer/seller's name, rank, and serial number affixed to the dealer's 1099.

First, we all seem to be losing sight of the fact that Ben Jealous (fill in the punchline) was the one who demanded Ms. Sherrod's firing to cover the embarrassment of Brietbart's exposing racism withing the NAACP's ranks. If anybody gets sued, it would be Ben Jealous and the NAACP (Roy Wilkins must be spinning).

Ms. Sherrod, if you view the video, doesn't exactly redeem herself in terms of her formerly racist views, as some have advertised. She says that incident taught her it was an issue of haves and have-nots, not white and black; in other words, she went from a Black Panther to a William Ayers small c communist, which probably didn't hurt her when considered for her former position. She particularly talks about elites, which is odd, considering that's how many people describe The Zero and his crowd.

Which is why she should not get her job back. The government is infested (infected, if you prefer) with too many like her (think all those czars) already. And some of those apologies may be best put on hold.

PS She also gives us the kind of Cornel West history so many of our own small c communists like to peddle as fact. According to Ms. Sherrod, there were originally white and black (possible, but probably not too many) indentured servants. They intermarried freely and started to conspire against their masters (the haves, the elite, in Ms. Sherrod's tale), so, to drive a wedge between the races and institutionalize racism, the black servants became slaves.

Sounds like the fairy tales HD spins.

PPS Drudge is reporting the new newspaper of record has 2 more accounts of Albert Gore's second chakra having zipper failures in the company of masseuses.

> As I posted on another thread, unless Sherrod is a Schedule C government employee, who therefore serves at the pleasure of the President, she is legally entitled to a hearing under Civil Service regulations.

When you resign you are waiving your right to a hearing.

> So if she was regular Civil Service then attempts to pressure her for her resignation were illegal.

Er, wrong. She can always say no.

James

> The NAACP and USDA stupidly overreacted to what appeared, at first glance, to be damning evidence of Sherrod being a racist.

You keep ignoring the fact that the people supposedly leaping to conclusions in the NAACP were actually present for the speech when she gave it.

> an actual racist asshole - Mark Williams

Care to prove it. And hint: a satire doesn’t prove it.

> As for Breitbart: If he knew the actual content of the speech and still went forward

She confessed to discriminating against a white man and giving him to one of “his own kind.” All to the approval of those listening. Even if she walked back later, she is still a racist and they approved.

The fact is the NAACP’s president knew all of what she said, even more than they are sharing now, and condemned her. So I wonder what the NAACP edited out of the tape?

The professor had constructive notice of Breitbart's unreliability from his March Time magazine profile:

Andrew Breitbart sits in an Aeron chair at an iMac computer gazing out the sliding glass door of his Los Angeles home office. On the patio, a hula hoop and a portable basketball rim await his children's return from school. Breitbart, 41, dressed on this late-winter day in his standard work uniform of a dirty oxford-cloth shirt and grungy khaki shorts, looks more like a surf bum than one of the most divisive figures in America's political and culture wars.

Another part of this story is that, while it is now being covered all through the MSM, it is amusing to watch the pervasive attempts to misdirect and divert attention away from the NAACP and Gov't representatives!

Pogo said... The full video doesn't exonerate her prior statements, in which she admitted withholding her full effort for a farmer precisely because he was white.

She thought better of it, but she never should have been in that office making those decisions given her views. =====================Pogo, a pile of dog crap. This woman, Sherrod, was addressing an incident from 24 years ago when she was a state contractor in Georgia, not an office-holder. She started by saying she was irritated with the white farmer and didn't help as much as she could (to cheers of the many NAACP racists in the audience) but ensured that he was still helped by others so her sentiments didn't become the direct cause of harm to him.The point of her speech though, was her saying that incident a quarter century ago with the poor white MODIFIED her thinking thereafter that the real problem is not inequities of skin color but how society is stacked against those of low socioeconomic class. (less cheering from the NAACP racists on that, who see even black lawyers clearing 400K a year in Beltway biz as "victims".)

It was a pretty good speech, that portion I heard...and if she was fired as a career employee of USDA for something she did as a contractor in Georgia 25 years back that caused no harm at the time....she has one hell of a good wrongful termination, loss of reputation, career injury lawsuit she can launch - even if she is hired back.

It also speaks of the power of the NAACP - an organization that many of us see as outdated and irrelevant, but which has enormous clout with the Obamites.

I'll write another post on that. Not only did the NAACP demand and get Sherrod's head, they were in the thick of DOJ's decision to drop the Black Panther charges.

Panthers - According to whistleblower testimony, the former head of NAACP Legal Action - now a Deputy White House Counsel - intervened with two lead lawyers at DOJ. At the request of the present NAACP Legal Action counsel, who apparantly worried that "color blindness" in enforcing civil rights statutes would divert resources from the bona fide minorities that alone deserve the inadequate resources of DOJ's Civil Rights Unit benefitting them.

NAACP may be the driver of the whole Black Panther scandal, not some progressive Jewish lawyer at DOJ, not Holder. NAACP going through a powerful former employee of theirs now at the White House, that pressured DOJ to drop charges and stop "wasting time and hours on some Republican Uncle Toms and white folk".

Where is Ann's post that she promised about the full unedited video of Ms. Sherrod's speech? I take it Ann is wait for her hero Rush Limbaugh to finish up his program so that she knows what her talking points are. LOL!

Rich and Phil - I saw and heard the tape on O'Reilly last night. You didn't. There WERE cheers as she described how she gave the redneck some comeuppance.

=======================edutcher - "Ms. Sherrod, if you view the video, doesn't exactly redeem herself in terms of her formerly racist views, as some have advertised. She says that incident taught her it was an issue of haves and have-nots, not white and black; in other words, she went from a Black Panther to a William Ayers small c communist, which probably didn't hurt her when considered for her former position. She particularly talks about elites, which is odd, considering that's how many people describe The Zero and his crowd."

If you honestly think the haves and have nots have an equal playing field, access to lawyers, equal job opportunity, same access to a Senator as a Lehman Bros banker or union official or Saudi prince or Jewish real estate mogul does....IF you honestly think the rules are the same for Ruling Elites as for ordinary Americans and no different for either of those groups as for those in the bottom socioeconomic classes - You are not made an anti-communist by such beliefs.Just an idiot.

I would also like to see people commenting on the positive reaction of Sherrod's black audience to her past racist behavior that she talks about in the video.

A bunch of white people (Tea Partiers?) laughing and nodding approvingly at such talk would certainly be used to paint the whole movement in a bad light. Why not the same for the NAACP? The clip makes the whole group look like a bunch of black racists.

This is not a fail for AB, he got exactly what he intended; to expose Jealous as the useful idiot/tool he proved himself to be.

I must have missed it, perhaps you can point me to any indication that the left is inclined to give the benfit of the doubt or change their view of the right on any issue, under any circumstance.

Hopefully playing the race card has finally jumped the shark, but I suspect not.

As ugly as this week has been,and it's only Wednesday, it's going to get much uglier should either chamber of Congress change hands in Nov. Expect all race card all the time, it's the only card they have left to play.

When Ms. Sherrod discussed the superiority of the white farmer and deciding what she would do for him, there were sounds from the audience that seemed to indicate approval of those actions. It sounded like being in a church listening to the preacher where members speak up in agreement with what he is talking about. That tends to sound like acknowledgment of similar feelings and approval.

The silence heard after that, after it was clear there was going to be a moral to her story, indicates to me that people suddenly felt caught in their self-righteousness and hypocrisy. If not, how can we explain that "not a peep" was heard? Why didn't they continue to show approval by speaking up?

To me it sounds like when you go along agreeing with a joke you initially think is funny, then you realize it turns out to be a racist story (or in bad taste)and you're too scared to tell the person to stop, so you just shut up instead.

"When Ms. Sherrod discussed the superiority of the white farmer and deciding what she would do for him, there were sounds from the audience that seemed to indicate approval of those actions. It sounded like being in a church listening to the preacher where members speak up in agreement with what he is talking about. That tends to sound like acknowledgment of similar feelings and approval."

Fair enough. I really am just trying to gain an understanding of what people are referring to when they cite "cheers" and "affirmations." I do believe you are describing some ambiguous responses from the audience and assigning to them meaning based on what they "seem to indicate." I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I also don't think it's particularly compelling evidence.

How does this jibe with the idea that the people know best, that they're not stupid? How does it NOT play into arguments that [some collection of] elites are better equipped to run things?

Good point reader. Good catch.

I guess, I was inartfully (lol) pointing out that the media and public education system have dumbed down the public in several ways. One, by filtering the information that we get through a political media agenda. Two, by not teaching critical thinking skills in school leaving many people without the ability to filter on their own.

The general public has historically been trusting that our elected leaders are doing the right thing and working in our best interests. The older generation and the less involved tend to still think that way, trust.....or at least want to trust.

There is also the fact that some people just don't care to stir themselves to do their own research or are too lazy to try. I think/hope they are a minority of the population.

The internet and the flood of more information has opened the eyes of many. It isn't that people are dumb or stupid. They are uninformed, uneducated, uninvolved and passive.

Our ruling elites and the powers that be, want it to be this way so that they can keep in power. Power = MONEY.

I certainly don't think that the country should be led by a group of non elected elites.

I also believe that the population as a whole, when given the total story,all the information has more practical common sense than they/we are given credit for.

The people are practical and given a chance, we CAN see through the BS.

as of 2012, dealers in gold will be forced to record and report all individual gold transactions that exceed $600 - literally, the buyer/seller's name, rank, and serial number affixed to the dealer's 1099.

Ah that isn't the worst of it. Businesses will have to send 1099's to all vendors that we purchase more that $600 worth of goods.

So I get to send Staples, Best Buy, Costco and other places 1099's. I need the tax ids of all those companies.

My husband, a plumbing business, will need to do the same for the local hardware store, the pump manufacturer, steel supply company....the list goes on and on and on

"The full video doesn't exonerate her prior statements, in which she admitted withholding her full effort for a farmer precisely because he was white."

On the contrary, the full video exonerates her completely. This is but the opening incident in a story she tells, in which she learned that it was not about race but about being poor. She only recounts her first instinct to show how wrong she was!

"You're now engaged in a (silly) argument over semantics. I did not hear "cheers" but I did hear agreement.

Satisfied?"

OK. No "cheers."

I don't think this is mere semantics, because the whole point, once we've established it was inaccurate to accuse Ms. Sherrod of discriminating because of race in her current position with USDA, was that the audience's reaction to what she said was indicative of racism on the audience's part. So whether that reaction was "cheers" as opposed to, say, ambiguous murmurs, seems pretty material, and not just semantics, to me. It also seems material, given what we now understand to be the whole point of all this, whether there was, say, one person saying "that's right" at one point, as opposed to the entire crowd expressing "affirmation."

Which still leaves the question: To what statements in her speech did you discern "agreement" to?

"The full video doesn't exonerate her prior statements, in which she admitted withholding her full effort for a farmer precisely because he was white."

On the contrary, the full video exonerates her completely. This is but the opening incident in a story she tells, in which she learned that it was not about race but about being poor. She only recounts her first instinct to show how wrong she was!

And by the way, there is nothing racist whatsoever in the audience's reaction. First they are wary, edgy, when it sounds like it might be about race, but when she makes her final, surprising point it is nothing but Amens and a lot of righteous relief. You can hear it clearly in their voices. They really are God-fearing, God-loving people, no doubt about it.

Come on, Ann. I know you will do right by this woman. Where's your comment.

This is instructional in another way: it shows that when dealing with the government you may run into an unreformed version of Ms. Sherrod who decides on the basis of their personal whim how much help you deserve or not.

It would suck if the official in charge of your healthcare didn't like smokers and decided you'd just get "enough" care for the bureaucrat to do CYA.

BJM said:This is not a fail for AB, he got exactly what he intended; to expose Jealous as the useful idiot/tool he proved himself to be.

Yes, I will concede that. It occurred to me after I posted, that if his goal was to embarrass Jealous, then he succeeded; at least for now. It also embarrassed Obama, to some lesser extent, which to some may be a win.

But this incident doesn't impress me. I didn't need a video of some comments made out of context, that ended up getting a woman fired, to make up my mind about Mr. Jealous. I already knew he was a jerk when he used the race card on the TPers.

I must have missed it, perhaps you can point me to any indication that the left is inclined to give the benfit of the doubt or change their view of the right on any issue, under any circumstance.

I don't believe they do. But not everyone who is not conservative, is a die-hard lefty. Many average folk still can be swayed by what they see on the news and in the papers. The way I see it, why give the left more ammo to bash conservatives with, ie. being tarred as race-baiters, unless the payoff is really big.

In this case, I still don't see how AB gained all that much. But we'll see how it plays out. I could be surprised. Perhaps the way the NAACP overreacted will have more impact than I imagine.

SS: the first time i was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm ... He had come to me for help. What he didn't know ... was I was still trying to decide how much help I was gonna give him

(laughter/audience noise of indeterminate nature)

SS: so I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough ...

Insert a white guy at a national IRS meeting:"The first time I was faced with having to help a black farmer save his farm ... He had come to me for help. What he didn't know ... was I was still trying to decide how much help I was gonna give him ...so I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough."

SS: So we met at the lawyer's, ... and his lawyer sat there, and he had been paying his lawyer yall that's what got me .. and the lawyer sat there and looked at him and said well yall gettin old, why don't you just let the farm go?

AUDIENCE: in-suck of breath.

SS: .... and about 7 days before that land would have been sold at the courthouse steps, the farmer called me and said the lawyer wasn't doing anything. And that's when I spent time ... calling everybody I could think of to try to see, to help me find a lawyer

...working with him made me see it's really about those who have, and those (who don't)

They are now committed to calling Ms. Sherrod to apologize, but apparently have claimed they can't find her telephone number. A helpful journalist pointed out to Rob't Gibbs that it is the same number they called yesterday when they fired her, and she was carrying her phone in her hand when she was on CNN this AM.This just gets better and better!

I'm not pimping shit. I've said he was wrong.But, having sat in more-than-my-share of black gatherings, I know how the crowd dynamics work. HT can put up all the examples he wants of how they responded to a better message but the truth is - before they knew where she was going - they were with her. Jenner got it right:

"When Ms. Sherrod discussed the superiority of the white farmer and deciding what she would do for him, there were sounds from the audience that seemed to indicate approval of those actions. It sounded like being in a church listening to the preacher where members speak up in agreement with what he is talking about. That tends to sound like acknowledgment of similar feelings and approval.

The silence heard after that, after it was clear there was going to be a moral to her story, indicates to me that people suddenly felt caught in their self-righteousness and hypocrisy. If not, how can we explain that "not a peep" was heard? Why didn't they continue to show approval by speaking up?

To me it sounds like when you go along agreeing with a joke you initially think is funny, then you realize it turns out to be a racist story (or in bad taste)and you're too scared to tell the person to stop, so you just shut up instead."

They didn't speak up, BTW, because they were momentarily confused - they didn't know where she was going. I think, once exposed to Sherrod's awakening, they also agreed because, deep down, they know what "the right thing" is and want to hear it, but (as I said a few days ago on another thread) it's got to be delivered in the right manner.

Y'all have got to understand: after slavery, Jim Crow, and then Black Power and, later, even over the battles on Hip-Hop culture, becoming post-racial doesn't come easy to some. It definitely doesn't to my black friends, but takes a lot of explaining and (from time to time) reinforcement. I've said here many times that my black friends think my talking to whites is insane - you're not seen as being trustworthy - and, as I said in my post, linked above, in some ways you're not: My being black hasn't caused anyone to come to my aid - my ex and her homeopath are free and any penalty they've paid for killing three people (which, so far, has amounted to the closing of the quack's medical practice) I did alone. As a matter of fact, from the very beginning, it was (partially) my race that's been used against me as a reason NOT to help me. "Black guy - too macho to handle his wife left him." It's like the dead bodies don't exist once they get there.

Meade said... ".... we now believe the organization that campaigned to elect Mr. Obama president did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans."

who might that be Meade? I don't remember Faux or Rush or anyone from that crowd campaigning for Mr. Obama...do you? I mean if you do, well enlighten us but I think that they pretty much constitute the daily list of liars who would do such a thing...

and if you are trying to draw the NAACP into that, can you name a few of the "millions of Americans" to whom you refer...or is that just a figure of speech...a hyperbole...or perhaps you mis-spoke? It's ok. You can admit it. go on. They know.

You can repeat the lie as often as you want, but doesn’t make it true.

Mark Williams wrote that letter. He is only one person. One person I never fucking heard of until you libs all got your journalist style talking points and started screaming about him at once. So who does he represent?

His letter was satire. I guess its stupid to expect the left to have enough fairness to know what satire is and recognize its meaning. Here’s a hint. It doesn’t mean he called black people colored. It doesn’t mean he wants them to go back into slavery. Duh.

And I have corrected you on this before, which means you don’t care about the truth.

So, once again, I'm going to ask: When are we, as a people, going to let this go? How many have to get hurt, unnecessarily, because of this insistence to keep the race meme going?

Amen to that.

No one is coming out of this looking or smelling good?

Does anyone really think you can win an argument where the essential point is:

your side is more racist than my side

The further point, and to Crack's point, that I see in this (that somewhat goes beyond politics) is when does the past no longer trump the present. When does a frankly racist statement by a black man stop getting down played because of the "history" (personal or otherwise). When does the innocuous statement by the white guy stop getting magnified because of the "history".

There is nothing in her anecdote that can be considered racist because she is using it to illustrate how she learned that it is all about the haves and the have nots. But what is missing from the Breitbart video is the whole part where she talks about working to save the farm!

Oh, I see. I applaud the fact that she learned to overcome her previous racism... that's laudable, and a good lesson to teach.

She chose to turn that lesson, IMO, into one of "you shouldn't be a racist... instead, you should engage in class warfare."

Indeed, she is the salt of the Earth. We definitely need more people like her in our government!

Rick said:"Fair enough. I really am just trying to gain an understanding of what people are referring to when they cite "cheers" and "affirmations." I do believe you are describing some ambiguous responses from the audience and assigning to them meaning based on what they "seem to indicate." I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I also don't think it's particularly compelling evidence."

First, thank you for responding in a civil manner. I've been thinking about the possible ambiguity of the response from the audience, and what it sounded like to me.

Depending on one's own experience it might sound one way or another. Perhaps it sounded like approval to me, based on my experiences, just as whatever the white farmer said to Sherrod sounded like he was trying to be superior to her.

If the response from the audience was raucous or overly effusive, it might be easier to determine what it meant. But isn't that the complaint - not that most racism is overtly expressed, but that it is insidious?

So what standard or test should we use to determine racism? If we use the Left's standard, I think this would qualify for racism, exonerating statement or not. The main point though, is that the standard cannot be a double one.

After many years of thinking that the racial divide in America was a thing of the past, the election of a black President has reopened wounds that were once thought to be healed. and has shown to the world that despite a lot of talk about freedom, equality, and fairness, America is no better than any other country where groups divide themselves along racial or religious lines.Why people should choose to divide themselves along black vs white and not against fat vs thin or old vs young or black hair vs blond hair is very puzzling to many of us who come from countries where there racial tension hardly exist and where people of many cultures and races intermarry freely.Perhaps the United States should stop preaching to the rest of the world.You have enough racial hatred of your own to deal with without wandering all over the middle east trying to convert people to your way of living.

As someone who travels often, it's pretty clear to me it was you outsiders who were screaming America had to have this race-baiting prick in office, or we were the racists.

Well, now we're stuck with him, and all he's represented from the beginning. Thanks a lot, you pricks.

Now - if you don't mind - politely sit your ass down, shut the fuck up, and let we Americans deal with this bullshit you encouraged, without your hypocritical, know-nothing, bullshit opinion - on what we do - once again fucking up our discussion of what's best for ourselves.

Why people should choose to divide themselves along black vs white and not against fat vs thin or old vs young or black hair vs blond hair is very puzzling to many of us who come from countries where there racial tension hardly exist and where people of many cultures and races intermarry freely.

So, Tourist, where are you from? Because I've traveled a bit and I'm not aware of any countries that have citizens of "many cultures and races" all intermarried without tension. In fact, the one nation that comes anywhere close to that description is the one of which you're being so condescendingly critical.

Here in the US we have people from every corner of this planet representing every race, ethnicity, religion, culture and ideology known to man. It's a goddamn fucking amazement that we can make it work at all much less as well as we do. So, please, do tell, where is this little paradise on earth that has so much to teach us.

As regards the Sherrod business, the one fact I wish everybody had known up front is that the events she described occurred many years ago and not in her capacity as Georgia Director of Rural Development. I think that would have saved everybody a lot of grief.

I was just contrasting Ms Sherrod's experience with racism with that of Condaleeza Rice. Ms Sherrod's father was killed by whites. Ms Rice's church was bombed while she was in attendance and some of her best friends were killed by whites. Mr Sherrod has finally decided it is a rich vs poor situation. Ms Rice has moved on to an exalted career and learned long ago to accept people as they are. And yet the NAACP treats Ms Rice an a "house nigger" while they treat Ms Sherrod as an honored guest.

She, Ms Sherrod is an amazing individual, and her personal story knocked the socks off Washington politics, left and right. Hopefully the NAACP, USDA, T Party, Republicans, Democrats, US Government ,Fox News, and every blog hater alike will grow from witnessing the genuine good that can come from overcoming our own agenda,. Shirley, the farmer and his wife illustrated the powerful potential of compassion and overcoming the odds.